USC Sociology Reading Reflection Essay

 

 

Screening: Glee (Fox, 2009-2015)

Readings:

1.) Mittell, Jason. 2010. Television and American Culture. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 213-268. Chapter 6: “Telling Television Stories”

2.) Swidler, Ann, Melissa Rapp, and Yasemin Soysal. 1986. “Format andFormula in Prime-Time TV.” Pp. 324-337 in Media, Audience, and Social Structure, edited by Sandra Ball-Rokeach and Muriel G. Cantor.
Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

3.) Harrington, C. Lee. 2012. “The ars moriendi of US Serial Television:Towards a Good Textual Death.” International Journal of Cultural Studies 6(6): 579-595.

4.) Bielby, Denise D. and C. Lee Harrington. 2017. “The Lives of Fandoms.” Pp. 205-221 in Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World (2nd ed.), edited by Jonathan Gray, Cornel Sandvoss, and C. Lee Harrington. New York, NY: New York University Press.

Prompt:

The cultural significance of television narratives can be very transitory. Using Glee, discuss briefly the characteristics that make up a “good textual death” and how satisfactory narrative closure makes television stories less ephemeral.